I thought losing my baby daughter during childbirth would be the hardest thing I would ever survive. I was wrong.

Two weeks after Claudia died, my eight-year-old son, Willie, started putting coins and crumpled bills into an old glass jar every day. When I asked why, he insisted he was saving enough money to bring his baby sister home.

I tried explaining that Claudia was gone, but Willie refused to believe me. Then one afternoon, he looked at me with tears in his eyes: “Mom, she’s not gone. Daddy used money.”

My body went cold. Willie explained that while I was recovering in the hospital, he had seen his father near the elevators handing a thick envelope of cash to a woman, before holding a crying baby and touching her head.

The detail that stopped my heart was the identity of the woman: Claire, my husband’s younger sister, whose daughter Ivy was born just weeks before Claudia.

When I confronted my husband, Robert, in the kitchen, he froze. At first, he claimed the envelope was financial help for Claire. He admitted he had held Ivy briefly to feel a baby in his arms after our loss.

I wanted to believe him, but too many questions remained. Why had he kept it a secret? Why did Claire avoid looking at me? And why was Willie convinced Claudia had been traded?

Determined to get answers, I drove straight to Claire’s house…